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WA quartet join exclusive list with triple crown

Cameron Bancroft, Ashton Turner, Aaron Hardie and Matt Kelly join just three other players after another year of unrivalled men's success for Western Australia

Twenty-eight players, six titles, one organisation. 

Such is the depth men's cricket in Western Australia that remarkably not one of those players has played in all six. 

But there is four – Cameron Bancroft, Ashton Turner, Aaron Hardie and Matt Kelly – who have added their names to an exclusive list of players to have won all three men's domestic titles in the one season. 

They join Marcus Harris, Chris Tremain and Cameron White who were the first to achieve the feat with Victoria and Melbourne Renegades in 2018-19.

"It's just been a pretty unbelievable little period of time," Bancroft said on Sunday after hitting the winning runs in WA's Marsh Sheffield Shield final victory over Victoria at the WACA.

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"We all really enjoy playing with each other and winning games of cricket and trying to thrive in the big moments.

"And that's what you live for – we've just been able to play some really good cricket and it's been pretty amazing."

Turner – player of the match in this year's Shield final for his brilliant 128 – has played in five of the six, leading the Perth Scorchers and WA's 50-over side to back-to-back championships.

Turner back in first-class form with vital Shield final ton

He missed last year's Shield final during his two-and-a-half-year hiatus from first-class cricket, earning a recall for the last game of the 2022-23 regular season following the retirement of state great Shaun Marsh and on the back of four hundreds in the WA second XI and for Premier Cricket club Fremantle across the summer.

Bancroft, Hardie and Kelly have also played in five title-winning sides, with the trio absent from last year's KFC BBL|11 triumph over Sydney Sixers at Marvel Stadium.

Scorchers head coach Adam Voges – who has been at the helm for all six titles – revealed following that BBL decider that Hardie was agonisingly close to playing, and he'd even drafted the X-Factor paperwork to sub him in at the 10-over mark of the match after his side had slumped to 4-25.

But all three played crucial roles in the Scorchers' unprecedented fifth Big Bash crown this summer with Hardie the tournament's top runs scorer with 460 at 41.81, Bancroft ninth with 357 runs at 51, and Kelly claiming the 2-37 in the final as Perth beat Brisbane Heat by five wickets.

Voges said following the state's back-to-back Shield win on Sunday their unprecedented success – never has a state and their attached BBL club won consecutive titles in all three men's domestic competitions – was due to a combination of things, but listing their incredible depth as the primary example.

"We've had over 20 players playing in our Shield campaign this year on top of our white-ball campaigns," he said.

"We've had multiple contributions from various players throughout the season who have put their hand up when they've had their opportunities.

"And as we saw again over the last four days, someone has stood up and been able to get us over the line."

Remarkably, it's not the first time Western Australia have claimed back-to-back Sheffield Shield and 50-over titles in the same season having become the first state to do so in 1976-77 and 1977-78 after the one-day competition was introduced in the summer of 1969-70.

Sheffield Shield and One-Day Cup double

1976-77: WA

1977-78: WA

1979-80: Victoria

1984-85: NSW

1992-93: NSW

1993-94: NSW

2002-03: NSW

2018-19: Victoria

2021-22: WA

2022-23: WA